The present invention relates to swimming goggles.
In swimming goggles, it is well known to provide a pad made of a flexible elastic material around the peripheral frame of the lens assembly.
For example, in the case of the goggles disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Publication No. 1986-46498 (Citation 1), a tubular main body molded from hard plastic material is provided at one end with a lens assembly and at the other end with a flexible contact cushion made of sponge or the like. The flexible contact cushion comes in close contact with the wearer's face as such goggles are worn.
The swimming goggles' pad disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3048517 (Citation 2) comprises two different members of which the one is a face contacting layer and the other is a flexible layer. The face contacting layer comprises a shock absorbing segment attached to a lens frame and an extensional segment to which the flexible layer is attached. The face contacting layer presents a J-shaped cross-section and the flexible layer made of flexible material such as sponge is placed upon a distal end portion of this J-shaped cross-section in a thickness direction (i.e., back-and-forth direction) of the lenses.
The pad described in Citation 2 is advantageous in that two members being different in flexibility are combined to enhance a bonding effect between the pad and the lens frame, on one hand, and to ensure flexible and close contact with the wearer's face, on the other hand. Compared to the flexible contact cushion forming the pad described in Citation 1, the pad described in Citation 2 is certainly more advantageous. However, in the case of the pad described in Citation 2 comprising a combination of these two members, the flexible layer is placed on and bonded to the extensional segment of the face contacting layer in the back-and-forth direction of the goggles. To enhance the bonding effect between these extensional segments and the flexible layer, it is required not only to use adhesive having a high adhesive strength but also to enlarge the surface area over which these segment and layer are bonded to each other. However, enlargement of the bonded surface leads to enlargement of the outer diameter of the extensional segment and to the corresponding increase in a frictional resistance of water.